CLASSIC POST ARISTOTLE NORTHRUP FRYE BOBBITT TEAM PLAY

Saturday, April 2, 2011

RE ATTACKING THE TEAM IN EMINENT DOMAIN TOPIC OF MY TALK CHAPTER

 TOPIC OF MY TALK (ARISTOTLE PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHERS: EXCESS OR DEFECT)

Everyone acknowledges that some team-like effort is necessary in coordinating and presenting a condemnation case.  Most lawyers appreciate the point regarding the benefits from more effective team effort.

However, this view focuses on when there’s not enough team work, what you might call, (following Northrup Frye's Anatomy Of Criticism  schematism  applied to litigation cycles instead of literary epochs, or Aristotle's concept of defect,)  the 'pathetic' side of the team play issue. 

The topic of my remarks is a different side, let’s call it, (once again vaguely mimicking Frye's categorizations, what Aristotle would have called excess,) the dark side, of team play: 


when there’s too much of it.

How prevalent is too much team play?  


Geselbracht, in an ABA publication, himself an advocate for a team approach, to land use cases in Illinois, says “too many lawyers make the mistake of only hiring an expert whom they can control and who will give an opinion favorable to their case.”

“Too many lawyers”… How many is that? Believe me, that’s a lot of lawyers!  You might find it’s that way in eminent domain in your state. 

This is something many of you may be familiar with. Something no one seems to talk about at seminars.

I will raise professional questions, about how far is 'too far', for eminent domain as a team sport. 

I will raise ethical concerns, not just professional ethics, but ethics in general, about what I will call aggressive team play.  


But I am not just going to talk about ethics. 


I will explore tactical weaknesses in cases built on aggressive team play.  


I will suggest causes and solutions for the problem. I may tell a war story or two.

Y'all can get boring old ethics hours for listening to tactics and war stories.  It just doesn’t get any better than that!